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FILM; History Is Written in Smoke

Published: November 8, 1992

(Page 2 of 2)

Sometimes, as when Anne Bancroft blows smoke at Dustin Hoffman while trying to seduce him in "The Graduate" (1967), it was the women who begged for a sexual relationship. "Can I give you a cigarette?" Priscilla Lane asks John Garfield when they meet in "Four Daughters"(1938), offering him one of her cork-tipped cigarettes and lighting it for him. It was the first step to a bad marriage between the blond small-town girl and the dark urban stranger. In "Out of the Past" (1947), another blond and blue-eyed small-town girl rushes to light Robert Mitchum's cigarette. The flame spurts, like their love, but his past has too strong a grip on him; the love between him and Virginia Huston will never be consummated.

Although Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Jane Greer and assorted hoods do a lot of smoking in "Out of the Past," as is usual in film noir, only in that early scene does a cigarette carry a sexual charge. Perhaps better than any other movie, "Out of the Past" demonstrates the use of cigarettes as a symbol -- and instrument -- of power.

In the film's first scene, a gangster can't get the attention of a young boy. He lights a cigarette and forces the boy to pay attention by hitting him with the match. Menace, power and violence are in the gesture. Later, the same gangster will stand mute while Robert Mitchum flicks his cigarette onto the floor. After he leaves the room, the frustrated gunman crushes the cigarette into the carpet.

In scene after scene, whoever has control of the cigarettes dominates the others in the room. After Robert Mitchum knocks out a crooked nightclub manager and steals a briefcase from his desk, he pauses to take one of the man's cigarettes and to light it with the man's fancy desk lighter. Kirk Douglas plays with a cigarette when he hires Mr. Mitchum to find the girlfriend who ran out on him.

Equal in power when he accepts the job on his own terms, Mr. Mitchum stands up and lights up. He finds Jane Greer and, in the film noir tradition, falls for her, but he doesn't light up in her presence. It is she who has the power over him and she who comes in out of the Acapulco sun and, in her first gesture, lights a cigarette. Only when he is no longer under her spell does Mr. Mitchum smoke in her presence.

One can only guess how much of this symbolism was intended by the director, Jacques Tourneur. Certainly the actors were also bringing to the screen the various uses to which they put cigarettes in their ordinary lives -- to pose, to control, to share, to play for time in an awkward situation. In psychiatric terms, smoking is "overdetermined": cigarettes, like other symbols, can mean more than one thing at the same time.

Although attitudes toward cigarettes on screen have gradually become as politically correct as those toward safe sex, animal rights, feminism and the American Indian, cigarettes do continue to convey recklessness, rebellion and defiance. From 12-year-olds smoking behind the barn in real life, to Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon lighting up in "Thelma and Louise" (1991) on their way to becoming outlaws, cigarettes flout authority.

That defiance is a key to the runaways Lula (Laura Dern) and Sailor (Nicolas Cage) in the 1990 film "Wild at Heart." But Lula, who started stealing cigarettes from her mother's purse in sixth grade, also shares with Sailor that satisfying after-sex cigarette that has dressed a thousand movies.

Until some brave new world allows frontal male nudity, cigarettes will probably remain a handy shorthand for potency, even though, in our less subtle age, guns have taken over much of that function. But there will always be neurotic protagonists like Nick Nolte in "The Prince of Tides" proving their inner torment by the way they smoke and the fact that they smoke.

It is impossible to imagine the heroic Victor Laszlo in "Casablanca" setting out for that underground meeting today with a cigarette in his pocket or in his mouth. No one could get away with the attitudes that routinely informed the films and the reality of the 1940's.

But villains can take up the slack. Like most of today's villains, Robert De Niro's tattooed sociopath in "Cape Fear" wouldn't have been complete without a smoke, that necessary proof of evil -- and of sadism. In "The Grifters," Pat Hingle brands Anjelica Huston, the woman who stole from him. In this year's "Final Analysis," Eric Roberts, dressed only in a towel, deliberately licks his cigarette before lighting it and forcing Kim Basinger to perform oral sex on him as he smokes. So if heroes can't smoke, villains are almost obligated to strike a match and reach for a butt.

Shall we have a cigarette on it?

Photos: Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum in the 1947 film noir "Out of the Past" -- As another Great American Smokeout approaches, it is clear that the film industry no longer regards cigarettes as symbols of glamour and power. (Movie Still Archives)(pg. 13); Robert De Niro in "Cape Fear" -- The tattooed sociopath he portrayed wouldn't have been complete without a smoke. (Philip Caruso/Universal Pictures)(pg. 16)